‘Keen as fuck’: youth participation in qualitative research as ‘parallel projects’

Available accessResearch articleFirst published online February, 2020

‘Keen as fuck’: youth participation in qualitative research as ‘parallel projects’

Volume 20, Issue 1https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794118816627

Abstract

Youth researchers continue to pursue the ideals of youth participation in research. This pursuit reflects a broader concern for the problems of participant-researcher power dynamics in qualitative research. Youth researchers develop and adopt a variety of techniques and ethical principles that attempt to position young people as active research participants. However, these methods and principles have not solved the challenges of participation. In this article, I argue that there is a need to accept that some of the power asymmetries of participation might be unsolvable, and to reposition the power relationship between young people and researchers. A central concern in this article is the paradoxically unethical outcomes produced by adult-centric ethics review processes. I argue that youth participation in qualitative research can be understood as parallel projects and that in doing so researchers can value young people’s reasons for participation. In fact, young people might be ‘keen as fuck’ (participant quote) to participate.

Keywords

adult centricity parallel projects participation research ethics youth

Introduction

Youth researchers continue to pursue the ideals of youth participation in research. The problem of power and representation in research methods are a continuing issue for qualitative researchers. These concerns have led youth researchers to develop and adopt a variety of techniques and ethical principles that attempt to position young people as active research participants. However, these methods and principles have not solved the challenges of youth participation, or the problems of power in the researcher-participant relationship in qualitative research more generally. Youth research remains an adult-centric process despite attempts to make it participant-led. Youth research intensifies the problems of participation in qualitative research as young people are routinely positioned as risky and incapable by the processes that govern research. Within the current risk-averse ethics climate some of the challenges of research participation are likely to be unsolvable. Furthermore, methods that are designed to encourage participation can obscure the multiplicity of power dynamics within a research encounter.

In this article, I pose critical questions about the aims of participatory methods and argue that there is a need to accept that some of the problems of participation might be unsolvable. Furthermore, I offer a reconceptualisation of the power relationship between young people and researchers. Existing ethics processes are adult-centric and can produce paradoxically unethical results. I argue that youth participation in qualitative research can be understood as parallel projects. Reconceptualising the dynamic in this way and valuing (young) people’s reasons for participation is important as it reveals symbolic violence produced through adult-centric risk-averse ethics processes. Moreover, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, young people might be ‘keen as fuck’ (participant quote) to participate in research.

To reposition young people’s participation in qualitative research, I describe the research encounter as containing parallel projects. The researcher arrives at the encounter with their research project. I argue the young person also arrives at the encounter with a (or more) project(s). The project could include the reason for participation, the method of engagement or the goals being pursued through the research encounter. Participant’s projects sometimes parallel the researcher’s. At other times the projects might conflict. Researchers might be able to identify and understand some of the young person’s projects. Other reasons for participation will be unrecognised or misunderstood. Youth research is a messy space with multiple contingencies. As such, the researcher cannot know or control the whole research process. Conceptualising qualitative youth research as parallel projects does not excuse the researcher from the responsibility to manage the risks of the process. Instead, this approach to youth participation positions the adult as a research participant. This approach avoids positioning young people (and qualitative research participants generally) as inherently disempowered, disinterested or risky participants in research by recognising that participants have projects that motivate and direct their participation.

This article begins with an overview of the research project through which this methodology was developed. This project investigated hyper-governed young people’s experiences of neoliberal violence. Following this, I conduct a brief survey of the existing youth participation literature situated within the broader qualitative research participation literature. Finally, I present my findings and simultaneously discuss them to develop my argument for conceptualising young people’s participation in research as parallel projects.

Project design

The methodology in focus in this article was developed to engage hyper-governed young people in conversation about their experiences and ideas around neoliberal violence. The term hyper-governed was generated to describe a group of young people who experience heightened levels of regulation and surveillance from the state. Youth is an already highly governed period (Kelly and Kamp, 2014: 7). The young people in this study attracted additional governing as a result of their relationship with the state. Their relationship was characterised by the intense governing of ‘wicked problems’ (Valentine, 2015: 243; Watts, 2015: 162) within the child protection system, juvenile justice system, or political activism. Hence, these are hyper-governed young people. Participants were fifteen to twenty-five years of age and were recruited through referrals from non-government youth services (NGOs) and snowballing techniques. As a result, the majority of participants were from South Australia, with some participants from other Australian states.

This project received ethics approval through the Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee at Flinders University (approval number 6655). Voluntary participation was a central concern through the ethics approval process. The ethical and participatory issues addressed through, and resulting from, the ethics review process is a significant focus of this article. These issues are discussed in detail in the body of this article. However, it is worth noting the following at this stage. Firstly, the minimum age of participants was set at fifteen years as a result of the ethics committee’s concern about the risks of discussing violence with young people. Secondly, the referral process from NGOs included a mechanism through which participants could decline participation without the knowledge of the referring agency.

Twenty-eight young people participated in semi-structured interviews. A visual timeline of the young person’s story was co-constructed by participants and the researcher during the interview. I included the timeline as a means of adding value (i.e. gathering additional data and employing a visual process) to the experience of the research encounter for the participant and researcher (Dean, 2015: 3.1). At the end of the interview participants were asked two questions designed to gain an understanding of their reasons for participating in the interview:

Has this conversation been useful to you in any way?

What was your motivation for participating in the interview?

Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis of the transcriptions revealed persistent motifs. Participant responses are discussed in the substantial section of this article. It is essential however to contextualise this discussion within the existing literature on youth participation, and more broadly researcher-participants relationships and ethics review boards.

Principles and practices of youth participation and qualitative research ethics

Researchers interested in children and young people have employed ‘participant centred’ methods in an attempt to avoid ‘studying down’ (Allen, 2008: 565). Over time there has been a shift towards an understanding of children and young people as not simply passive in the research process, but rather active subjects (Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 161). This shift reflects a broader movement in qualitative methods to acknowledge the co-created nature of qualitative social science research (Lund et al., 2016: 283; Connor et al., 2017: 8). Qualitative social science research is messy, and power dynamics between researchers and participants are complex (Doyle and Buckley, 2017: 96; Connor et al., 2017: 2). Researchers interested in young people have worked to support a discourse of active participants by designing diverse methodologies (Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 162). For example, creating opportunities for young people to utilise non-verbal mediums of communication. These methods have resulted in techniques that facilitate the expression of their ‘voice’ in ways that are meaningful to them (Lomax, 2012: 106; Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 162) including photo diaries, drawing, video and audio recording. These mediums are designed to be more engaging, but also alternative mediums can enable participants to express complex and difficult ideas and emotions (Hunleth, 2011: 86). Furthermore, Dean (2015: 3.1) advocates that the process of “doing something” adds value for the participant and builds a stronger connection to the experience and memory.

Interactive, creative and visual mediums are argued to increase young people’s engagement and participation in research (Åkerström and Brunnberg, 2013: 528; Gabb, 2010: 464). However, these methods can obscure the multiplicity of power-knowledge dynamics and the adult-centric nature of research (Hunleth, 2011: 82; Lomax, 2012: 106). The argument for more engaging or appropriate mediums ignores the possibility young people participate for reasons that are their own, and not anticipated by the researcher. Moreover, it is important to remember that these mediums are created by adults and their successfulness is measured in terms that are defined by the researchers; i.e. participation. Hence, research remains an adult-centred project. Finally, the argument that creative methods increase participation implies that young people are passive participants or incapable objects of research. Supposedly, only creative mediums can engage these passive and incapable people.

To further explore the methods and issues of youth participation there is a need to examine basic principles. The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) enshrined young people’s right to participate in decision-making processes that affect them (1989). Article 12 is the often cited foundation for the right of the child to participate in research (Åkerström and Brunnberg, 2013: 530). This convention is the result of a broader movement in the 1970s and 1980s towards youth participation in politics (Harris, 2009: 301). Harris argues that in the 1990s this interest shifted towards the language of ‘citizenship’, and again later in the 2000s towards ‘civic engagement’ (2009: 302). These later shifts are important as this movement is caught up in an attempt to solve a perceived issue of young people failing to participate. As such ‘civic engagement’ represents an attempt to ‘train’ young people in the ‘skills’ required to participate (Fox, 2013: 987). This civic engagement discourse arguably has a greater emphasis on control rather than participation. This shift from participation to control reflects the two sides a dual discourse of responsibility and innocence/riskiness within youth (Bessant, 2011: 64; Wyn and White, 1997: 19). Civic engagement positions young people as risky and incapable objects that need to be trained and have their participation regulated.

The ‘dual popular representation’ (Wyn and White, 1997: 19) of young people positions them as simultaneously capable and responsible, whilst also needing protection or being a risk to others. Young people popularly symbolise a source of hope and social change. However, they are also regularly represented as politically disengaged, apathetic and incompetent (White and Wyn, 2011: 110; Smith, 2015: 359; Harris, 2009: 302). It is possible to draw on either side of this discourse to justify a research method. Youth participatory methods intended for doing research ‘with’, and not simply ‘on’, young people reflects an ethical orientation towards valuing young people as equal contributors to knowledge creation. However, this dual discourse of youth can also counteract the researcher’s intention. Young people’s representation in research shapes the knowledge produced. If the target group is described as ‘challenging pupils’ (Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 163), then the findings will likely reinforce the idea that young people are problematic. Furthermore, the assumed category of youth itself is underpinned by normative biological, psychological, social discourses which form distinctions between adults and ‘not-yet-adult’ participants (Sercombe, 2010: 19; Wyn and White, 1997: 8; White and Wyn, 2011: 22; Tait, 1993: 42). Hence utilising the term youth carries exclusionary baggage.

Failure to examine the discourses underpinning research can result in researchers ‘wrongly collud[ing] in the enactment of dominant realities’ (Law and Urry, 2004: 399). For example, Allen (2008) identifies a shift within methodological literature in the terms used to describe a young person’s participation from ‘rebellion and delinquency’ to ‘resistance’ (Allen, 2008: 566). This shift is an important movement away from the association of young people with deviant labels. However, it also serves to perpetuate a picture of young people in a passive role. Young people can resist, but do not lead. Merely labelling methods as participatory or youth-led can serve to obscure the underpinning discourses of youth (Hunleth, 2011: 82). Youth researchers need to be aware of these discourses and be explicit in their ethical orientation.

Hart’s (1992) well known ‘ladder of participation’ is a model that describes different types, or levels, of participation and cooperation between children/young people and adults. The bottom rungs of the ladder represent non-participation, and the top rungs identify increasingly ideal participation. The ladder tops-out at an approach which is child/young people initiated and shared decisions with adults. The two rungs below are, in descending order: ‘child-initiated and directed’; and, ‘adult initiated with shared decisions with children’ (Hart, 1992: 8). Importantly the adult is not absent in the top rung of the ladder. Rather, the adult’s exclusion at the second level is considered a lesser form of participation.

Young people’s right to participate in research is a central principle in youth research. The implementation of this principle varies between projects but is described by Hart as ideally involving child-initiated projects that are shared with adults. This principle is held in tension by youth researchers in risk assessment and research ethics processes which emphasise the need to protect young people from the risks of participation. The movement towards participation is a shift towards an understanding of young people as active subjects, rather than passive objects of research (Allen, 2008: 565; 2009: 396; Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 161). In contrast, Allen (2009) describes the historical practice of youth-focussed research taking place through ‘adult proxies’ (i.e. parents, family members, teachers, etc.) (2009: 396). The orthodoxy of youth research has moved away from this practice. However, youth research continues to be regulated by adult-centric processes (i.e. ethics and risk management processes). These attempts to assess the competency and capability of young people to participate in research are ‘paternalistic as they begin from a position of adult hegemony’ (Daley, 2013: 128). Adults are the designers as well as the implementers of these systems of control.

Youth researchers and qualitative researchers, in general, have found that the adult-centric ethics review process can produce paradoxically unethical results (Connor et al., 2017; Doyle and Buckley, 2017; Gabb, 2010). Connor et al. (2017) and Doyle and Buckley (2017) argue that the origins of the ethics review process in the positivist bio-medical model are problematic for the ‘subjective, messy and non-linear’ (Doyle and Buckley, 2017: 96) social sciences. Qualitative researchers concede that there are inherent problems of power in the research-participant dynamic (Connor et al., 2017: 2). This acceptance of ambiguity is at odds with the risk management operations of research ethics committees (Connor et al., 2017: 468; Gabb, 2010). For example, Allen (2009) designed a research project that ‘endeavoured to prioritise the agency and competency of young people’ (399). However, the result of the ethics process was submission to a discourse of the ‘self-governing researcher who complied with committee regulations’ (339). The adult and compliance with adult concerns became the central story of the research, rather than the agency and competence of the young people. While youth researchers continue to wrestle with the infantilisation of young people, Connor et al. (2017) argue that these risk-averse ethics processes also infantilise the researcher. Likewise, Doyle and Buckley (2017) point out that researchers have to demonstrate that they are not ‘irresponsible and even dangerous’ (103). Each new project requires a re-articulation of the same argument about the capacity of (young) participants (and researcher) and the mitigations of potential risks. Connor et al. (2017) argue this kind of rote process is the result of the ‘blizzard of paperwork’ (2017: 9) involved in ethics applications. The probability of achieving ethics approval is therefore in part linked to the ability of the researcher to articulate their argument. This dependence on the researcher further centralises the adult and decentralises the young person in the research project. To be clear, I am not arguing for abandoning the ethics review process. I am, however, pointing out how the process can become a barrier to ethical research and compromise research integrity.

In theory, youth participatory methods are participant-led, and adults are involved in the process. However, there are social, historical, procedural and institutional barriers that make this ideal all but unachievable. Young people are a marginalised group, and youth continues to be a social category of exclusion (Sercombe, 2010: 19; Wyn and White, 1997: 8; White and Wyn, 2011: 22). Research institutions, like political institutions, are ‘created by adults to serve an adult agenda and are not structured around young people’s interests or designed to engage them’ (Harris, 2009: 302). Youth research needs new language to conceptualise the researcher-participant relationship. The solution, similar to Freire’s reconstruction of education, is not to integrate young people into the adult structures ‘but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves” (Freire, 2005: 74). Ironically, in this article the language is again being articulated by an adult, and therefore is in part reproducing adult centricity. Hence, there is a need to acknowledge young people’s reasons for participation, and furthermore to acknowledge that these might not always be the reason expected or desired. The researcher might not understand or be aware of these reasons. Freire argues that it would be ‘cultural invasion’ to fail to respect the participant’s perspective (2005: 95). This respect for participants’ perspectives requires an un-knowing, an acceptance of the ‘language of exploration’ (Gabb, 2010: 467), that creates space for young people’s reasons to exist on their terms. There should be space for conflict. The young person should be positioned as competent, without necessarily positioning the researcher as incompetent. Finally, the researcher needs to retain the responsibility to manage some of the risks. This article offers a conceptualisation of the qualitative research encounter as parallel projects as a possible way forward.

Parallel projects

When one young person was invited to participate in this research project, they said that they were ‘keen as fuck’. This level of enthusiasm might come as a surprise. It certainly contrasts traditional adult-centric views which position young people as incompetent (Fox, 2013: 987), incapable (Allen, 2009: 404) or disinterested in participating in research (Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 163). This response prompts reflection on the benefit or value the young person receives from participation. Clark (2010) argued that there had been ‘little systematic research’ about people’s reasons for participating in research that considers the risk and motivating factors (415). However, both Clark (2010) and Wolgemuth et al. (2015) have approached the experience of ‘being researched’, and produced some interesting results.

Empowerment and symbolic violence

Clark interviewed thirteen ‘experienced researchers’ who had recently utilised qualitative methods to investigate a diverse range of social phenomena and were ‘concerned with children and families in some respect’ (2010: 403). He discovered people participated in research for personal reasons including: ‘subjective interest, curiosity, enjoyment, individual empowerment, introspective interest, social comparison, therapeutic interest, material interest and economic interest’ (Clark, 2010: 404). People also participated for collective reasons including: ‘representation and giving voice; political empowerment; and, informing “change”’ (Clark, 2010: 411). Clark’s findings suggested that people participated for multiple reasons. Clark notes, however, that there are usually few attempts by researchers to gather the expressed experience of those ‘being researched’ (2010: 399). Building on Clark’s work, Wolgemuth et al. (2015) found that different research paradigms had little effect on the participant’s experience. Instead, the relationship with the researcher proved to have significant influence (Wolgemuth et al., 2015: 368). Both findings raise as many questions as they answer for youth research.

If, as Wolgemuth et al. suggest, the relationship is central to the participant’s experience then this suggests that the adult plays a central role in the research dynamic. In a way, this reinforces the ideal form of participation from Hart’s ladder as the adult continues to be important. However, in another way, it contradicts this model as the relational emphasis is ambiguous about who initiates the project. Furthermore, the idea of empowerment, identified by Clark, is problematic. Other researchers (Harris et al., 2015: 585; Lyon and Carabelli, 2015: 4) have argued that claims of empowerment are often overstated, and Clark concluded that the findings were ‘representative of those researcher viewpoints who took part in the study’ (Clark, 2010: 415). Empowerment is routinely identified as an important outcome for participants in youth research (Allen, 2009: 398; Clark, 2010: 411; Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 162; Harris et al., 2015: 584; Lyon and Carabelli, 2015: 4). However, empowerment is a problematic idea as it implies a disempowered a priori state. It also implies a hierarchical transaction whereby the lower status participant gains power, seemingly at the expense of the higher status researcher.

A simplistic hierarchical conception of power relationships in the research encounter overlooks another important factor. Farrugia (2013) argues that there is a risk in youth research that the researcher can participate what Bourdieu (2001: 33) calls ‘symbolic violence’. Farrugia became aware that his approach to interviewing homeless young people might be reproducing ‘suffering and stigmatisation due to the dominant discourses that give meaning to the experience of homelessness’ (Farrugia, 2013: 113). The language and symbolic meaning of homelessness in modern society positions young people as risky, incompetent, ‘moral failures’ (2013: 114). Similarly, the language of empowerment within an implied hierarchy of power positions research participants without power. Therefore, discourses of participation that centre around adult projects positioning participants as disinterested and incapable are a form of symbolic violence.

De-centring the adult

My research found that there was a range of reasons young people participated in an interview. Some of these reasons aligned with Wolgemuth et al. and Clark’s findings, others did not. When asked why they chose to participate in the interview the participants responded in ways that were unsurprising and yet also essential to a young person-centred understanding of participation.

Researcher:

So tell me, why did you agree to have this conversation?

Young Person:

I was, kind of not liking the other person in the classroom.

Researcher:

OK.

Young Person:

I don’t like other people.

For this young person, the research provided an opportunity to escape a different and less desirable situation. This escape may not be an active reason for participation, but they had an active reason not to do the alternative. This reason had little relationship to the researcher’s project. However, it does not necessarily mean that the young person did not want to participate, or that the participation was coerced. Rather, it could be argued that the young person was manipulating the research for their ends. This discussion, however, is speculative. All we know is that the young person did not want to be in the classroom. The rest remains unknown. However, acknowledging young people’s potential to manipulate research for their own purposes continues the movement away from conceptualising young people as objects of research, to active subjects of research (Allen, 2008: 565; 2009: 396; Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 161; Harris et al., 2015: 584). The following young person expresses a reason for participation that appears to parallel the researcher’s project. However, it is not necessarily the same as the researcher’s project.

Young Person:

Because I have always wanted to speak to someone about it. Like always, and you just happened to come up. So I was like yeah for sure. I’d love to tell someone this story.

In this instance, the participant’s and the researcher’s projects parallel. They are heading in the same direction. However, this parallel can be misleading. It can appear that the research is the only, or ideal, way of fulfilling the young person’s desire to tell their story. It is important that even though the projects are heading in the same direction, they are also separate and distinct. The alignment of direction could be (mis)understood in an adult-centric way. The young person’s project could be understood as being the same as the researcher’s project. However, there are many other ways a young person’s story can be heard, valued and amplified. If the desired outcome of participation is having your story heard (by an adult), it is dependent on an adult hearing the story. However, this would overlook the simpler truth that the young person wanted to tell their story. The value of participation is the opportunity for the agentic telling of their story (Lyon and Carabelli, 2015: 13). Telling their stories is a ‘revolutionary act’ (McLaren and Tadue Da Silva, 1992: 72). Despite who is listening to the story, the act of telling changes the young person’s world. Focussing on the telling of the story emphasises the young person’s reason for participation.

The following reflection supports the findings from Wolgemuth et al. (2015) regarding the importance of relationships within the research encounter. However, what came after the interview offers more context and an additional reason for participation. In this instance, I had met the young person previously in a professional context.

Young person:

I get to catch up with you. You are a sick cunt. And it has been eye-opening sort of interesting day start. To see what you are studying and see how for the little bits of psychology that I have studied here and there correspond to the violence and what not in your PhD.

Highlighted here is the young person’s agenda to maintain a relationship. However, after the interview, the young person offered to sell the researcher illicit drugs. Arguably this represents a further agenda for participation. This offer raises some ethical and risk management concerns and highlights the dominance of adult-centricity in research. For example, when presenting this finding to other researchers, an audience member persistently questioned the mandatory reporting obligations of the researcher. There are two significant points to consider in this instance. Firstly, the mandatory requirements in Australia require the reporting of harm and abuse (South Australian Department of Child Protection, 2017). The selling of illicit drugs does not necessarily fall under this requirement (South Australian Department of Child Protection, 2017). Secondly, if a researcher reports these kinds of questionable practices they risk (at least) three issues: 1) They might gain a reputation amongst the target group of reporting and lose credibility and access; 2) They participate in a discourse of youth that identifies young people as risky and incompetent; 3) Reporting might also do harm, which would also contravene ethical requirements. This project underwent and received ethics approval, and this issue was managed in line with this process. However, to focus on the particulars of the ethics process, or to debate further reporting requirements in this article would ironically be to focus on the concerns of adults in the research process. This paragraph serves to highlight, as described earlier, how the concerns of ethics processes can be paradoxically ‘antithetical to the conduct of “ethical research”’ (Allen, 2009: 399). Focusing on adult identified risks and assessment processes in this article would undermine the ethical concern, and central premise of this article, that young people should be conceptualised as active capable subjects (not risky objects) of research.

Valuing young people’s projects

One idea identified by Clark (2010: 402) that casts participants as active subjects, is the expressed desire to help others through research. In my research, young people also expressed this altruistic response. In Clark’s work participants were primarily interested in helping others in a similar situation (2012: 402). Young people in my research extended their concern beyond similarly situated people, to a broader sense of collective humanity. Participants understood the research encounter as a means to give back and improve the lives of everyone. This desire can be interpreted in an adult-centric way. Clark’s presentation of this reason for participation was as a staged process whereby (1) the data provided by the participant is (2) disseminated by the researcher, which being (3) read by others might then (4) effect change when applied in other people’s lives. However, there is another possible interpretation. Through the discursive action in the research encounter the participant challenges and creates knowledge that directly shapes (or governs) their sense of self and the world (Foucault, Burchell, Gordon, and Miller, 1991: 79). The research encounter becomes an opportunity for young people to do ‘work on the self’ (Tait, 1993: 52). In addition, the researcher is inexorably bound up in this discursive process and is also governed by productive power-knowledge relations (McGarry, 2015: 3). Participants (including the researcher) are rendered self-governing subjects, and the world is immediately changed.

Through participants’ altruistic responses it is possible to argue that the young person’s reason, what I am calling their project, for participating parallels the researcher’s reason for wanting their participation. They have different projects, but they are both heading in a similar enough direction to make the encounter possible. This parallel is the case with the examples provided above. The projects were parallel enough to make the encounter possible. It is conceivable that some projects will be closer, and others further apart. There is likely to be a threshold of relative closeness that is required for the encounter to work. Furthermore, it is possible that these projects might clash. I return to the potential for conflict in a moment. However, the following example demonstrates how close the parallel projects can be.

Young Person:

I thought it might be a nice thing to do. Help someone out with their uni stuff. Um, yeah and also I guess, yeah, its yeah I find it good to talk about nonviolence and to, um, think about these things and clarify my ideas and all that kind of stuff.

This young person expressed several projects in this short excerpt that challenge adult centricity. Firstly, they believed it might be a ‘nice thing to do’. The experience has value in itself. Again, they express a desire to help someone else (the researcher). Finally, they identify value in ‘clarifying my ideas’. As noted earlier, Tait suggests that youth can be problematised as doing ‘work on the self’ (1993: 42). In youth, the young person generates knowledge about the world and themselves. With this knowledge, they govern themselves. Youth can, therefore, be understood as an ‘artefact government’ (Tait, 1993: 4) or an ‘artefact of expertise’ (Kelly, 2010: 312). The research encounter is an opportunity through which the young person is active in the development of knowledge about themselves and the world. In this reflection, the two projects are very closely aligned. However, it is important to hold on to the distinction between the two projects. Tait (1993) describes a process of self-formation. However, Kelly (2010) raises the idea of ‘expertise’ as a warning. Young people and youth are increasingly governmentalised. Knowledge is developed about young people and youth to govern them (Kelly, 2010: 302). The project of knowledge creation for the purpose of governing primarily belongs to the regulating and controlling ‘carceral network’ (Foucault, 1979: 310). It should not be confused with the projects that motivate young people’s participation in research.

Conceptualising the research encounter as parallel projects values both the researcher’s project and the young person’s. It acknowledges that they are distinct, no matter how closely aligned they may seem. It also acknowledges the co-created nature of the knowledge in qualitative research. Both the young person’s and the researcher’s projects shape the nature of the encounter. Furthermore, there might be multiple projects held by multiple parties. Researchers regularly have multiple projects operating within an interview, and likewise so can a young person. The young person who tried to sell drugs also expressed a desire to maintain a relationship. This approach can value both projects, whilst acknowledging that the outputs of a project might not benefit the other party. For example, academic publications arguably hold little benefit for young people, whilst a young person seeking to avoid other people in a classroom does not directly benefit a researcher. Together they can both achieve something useful. However, these are distinct projects. In the following excerpt, two young people wanted to be interviewed together. The exchange demonstrates the co-creation of knowledge through multiple parallel projects.

Young Person 1:

I don’t know like, to help sort of thing. Cos I mean…

Young Person 2:

To help other people.

Young Person 1:

Yeah to help other people, like I mean. Yeah back in when I was younger the help that I got I am so thankful of. And the way I see it is if someone wants help or some information then I don’t see it as a problem sort of thing. You can’t really change what your past is.

Young Person 2:

You need to sort of help everyone else realise what is happening in life for you to realise as well.

Again, the participants expressed a desire to help others. Other young people might find their stories helpful, or practitioners might find guidance for professional practice. However, the interaction between the participants demonstrates the production of knowledge through conversation (McGarry, 2015: 1). Batsleer describes the way ‘sparks fly’ in conversation and ‘power relations shift and are transformed’ (2008: 9). Conversation is a space where multiple projects and power relationships come together. Projects that ‘help everyone realise’, but that also help ‘you realise as well’. The encounter that results from multiple parallel projects is not adult-centric but rather is located in the relationship (McGarry, 2015: 5). This relational space value the subjects’ (young person and researcher) parallel projects and their active and capable co-creation of knowledge. The young person and researcher form a relationship through the research and together participate in knowledge and subject formation (Farrugia, 2013: 112). Gabb (2010) argues that the trust and respect that is essential for the ‘relational contract between the researcher and participant’ in qualitative research extends beyond legal obligations and formal risk management processes (2010: 467–468). This kind of partnership reflects the dynamics between young people and adults in the top rung of Hart’s ladder. However, it is distinct from Hart’s model as he conceptualises only one project. This approach acknowledges multiple parallel projects in which two (or more) participants co-create knowledge. However, these projects might not always run parallel. They might also clash and come into conflict. This conflict is another potential opportunity for insight. It also offers a perspective on the nature of the relationship between researchers and young people.

Conflicting projects

Conflict is often conflated with ideas like violence and war or associated with emotions like anger. Hence the term implies a high level of energy or combativeness. However, conflict can be understood as simply as opposing goals (Tillett and French, 2006: 17). This kind of clash can occur between two (or more) people, as well as two (or more) nation states. Conflict can also happen internally. I could desire two opposing things at once, and be in conflict with myself. Galtung (1996: 70) argues conflict is an opportunity to find a creative solution. The following example conflicts from my research project are low-level conflicts. They do not involve physical violence or high emotional states. However, I argue that they do fulfil the criteria of competing goals.

As a result of the dual discourses of youth and the adult-centric governing of research, conflicting goals already exist in youth research. A key example is the positioning of young people as competent in a risk management process. Furthermore, if young people’s projects in research are going to be valued, there is a chance they have a project which conflicts with the researcher’s. This conflict might be intentional, or unconscious. It might be malicious or benign. However, conflicts between researchers and participants are an important insight in and of themselves (Harris et al., 2015: 596). To ignore the potential for conflicting projects in research is to present an inaccurate picture of the research encounter, and reinforces the adult-centric nature of research.

During one of the interviews for this research, a participant took hold of the visual timeline and folded it into the shape of a hat. Later in the same interview, the participant ripped it in half to demonstrate a point he was making.

Young person:

I just destroyed the timeline.

Researcher:

I’ll keep it anyway.

The participant repurposed the timeline for his project. Ideally, the timeline served as a written record of the conversation. The young person’s action conflicted with the researcher’s project. However, the higher purpose of the timeline was as a medium through which to draw out insights and to create an experience (Dean, 2015: 3.1). Changing the way it was used supported the larger project, and hence still fulfilled its purpose (Gillies and Robinson, 2012: 165). This point of conflict could have derailed the interview. However, conflict can be engaged through a relational model as an opportunity (Batsleer, 2008: 7; Ritchie and O’Connell, 2001: 155). This conflict was engaged as an opportunity to think about how the timeline could be used differently.

Several other interviews involved varying levels of conflict. One participant persistently made insulting jokes about the researcher’s physical appearance. However, this young person also revealed that they found making fun of others an effective technique to resist the violence they encountered in the child protection system. This insight is unlikely to have happened if the conflict had not been engaged as an opportunity. In another interview, two young people wanted to be interviewed together whilst smoking cigarettes.

Young Person 1:

It fucken tastes like Port Royal.

Young Person 2:

Straight off the plant that’s how it should taste.

Researcher:

So I have pressed record now.

Young Person 1:

Yep.

Researcher:

So the other thing I have to say at the start of the interviews…

Young Person 1:

Oi where is the crack pipe bro? Ha ha.

Researcher:

…so the other thing I have to say at the start of the interviews is of course if you say anything that indicates you will harm yourself mandatory reporting means I might have to report that…

Young Person 1:

We fucking know that shit.

Researcher:

…but otherwise everything is confidential.

Young Person 2:

We live in Families SA so we understand all that stuff.

Researcher:

Sweet man, I just have to say it for the recording. All right so…

Young Person 1:

Bom bom bom, bow bow bow (Singing along to music playing in the background).

Researcher:

… what I have been doing with other people is I’ve got like a visual diagram and I’ve helped them map some of their experience over time…

Young Person 1:

Hey bro give us the lighter. Needs a bit of…

Researcher:

…but that’s not really going to work for us today so we’ll just skip that. But what I am really interested in as well as your experiences in foster care and juvenile detention and any of those sort of systems…

Young Person 1:

It’s not lighting.

Researcher:

…is whether you think your experience has been fair or not?

Young Person 1:

Is it lit? Mines not even lit bro so if yours is I wouldn’t even do that off mine.

Young Person 2:

Mmm hmm.

Young Person 1:

Is it lit?

Young Person 2:

I’ll just light it in a second, just talk to…

There are many dynamics at play in this short extract. I am awkwardly trying to communicate something about the adult ethical requirements surrounding the interview, and the interview process. Young person 1 rejects the need to state these adult concerns as he ‘fucking know[s] that shit’. Arguably stating these concerns reinforces the experiences of stigmatisation and suffering in the child protection system. This symbolic violence (Bourdieu, 2001: 33) is produced by the adult concerns in the research process. Young Person 1 is also focussed on lighting their cigarette and having fun at my expense. Young Person 2 is likewise focussed on smoking and placating Young Person 1. It can be argued that these young people are still participating. However, their participation is only one of several competing projects including smoking, joking around, and resisting symbolic violence. These projects are closely enough aligned for them to continue to participate. However, they are also conflicting and placing strain on the encounter. The interview could fail if the smokes won’t light, if there is too much symbolic violence, or if the researcher is too attached to the process. If this conflict between the divergent projects caused the interview to fail, then significant insights would have been missed. These two young people later discussed their experiences and resistance to physical violence from child protection workers. Their techniques became a significant finding of the research project, that would not have been discovered if the initial conflict had derailed the interview. The central point here is that conflict needs to be an acceptable feature and engaged as an opportunity if young people’s projects are to be taken seriously.

Conclusion

Young people have a range of projects that motivate their participation in qualitative research. Examining young people’s motivations and exclusion from participation in the research process highlights ethics issues in qualitative research in general. To study young people as capable subjects rather than passive objects their projects within research need to be acknowledged. By extension, all qualitative research participants bring one or more projects to participation. Ethical research requires these projects be understood in a participant-centred way. Researchers must value the agentic revolutionary act of participants telling their story, their desire to develop or maintain a relationship, and the inevitable co-creation of each other’s worlds.

Youth research struggles with the dual discourses of youth and under the legacy of bio-medical risk-averse ethics review processes. Young people are simultaneously considered to be vulnerable and in need of protection, as well as capable and active contributors. Ethics processes weigh on the paternalistic side of this equation and reduce the possibilities for pure participant-led research to near zero. However, it is possible to understand young people’s participation in research not simply as the result of adult projects, but as a result of separate parallel projects. This approach upholds the emancipatory goals of youth research, while affirming the adult’s responsibility to manage some of the risks of the encounter. It is important to recognise that (young) people engage in research for various reasons. Recognising participants’ projects reveals issues in qualitative research methods including symbolic violence and the infantilisation of the participant (and researcher) through adult-centric risk-averse ethics processes. Furthermore, acknowledging young people’s projects position them as capable and active participants in the co-creation of knowledge. Young people have projects that motivate participation and they might be ‘keen as fuck’ to participate in research.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the valuable feedback on this article generously offered by Steven Threadgold, David Farrugia, Nik Taylor and Cassandra Star.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

ORCID iD

Ben Arnold Lohmeyer

Author biography

Ben Arnold Lohmeyer is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Flinders University, South Australia, and Head of Youth Work at Tabor, Adelaide, South Australia. Ben’s research interests include youth, governance, violence (personal, structural and neoliberal) and youth work practice. Recent articles include Lohmeyer, B. A. (2018). Youth as an artefact of governing violence: violence to young people shapes violence by young people. Current Sociology 66(7): 1070-1086; Lohmeyer, B. A. (2018), “Calling bullshit” in the age of hollow government: hyper-governed young people’s rejection of Fair Process and the subversion of restorative practices, Journal of Applied Youth Studies 2(4): 57–70.

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